From ClickZ:

“Sean has been recently appointed to develop the Center for Digital Communication, Commerce, and Culture at the University of Baltimore and is chief creative officer at idfive in Baltimore. He has colorfully chronicled digital advertising trends for ClickZ in a fortnightly column first published Nov. 11, 1998. Ever since, Sean has served ClickZ’s readers well thanks to his prescient observations and candor. He’s examined hassles of doing business on the early web, such as “Bandwidth Blues,” back in the day. Other columns are still relevant today, such as “Applications Not Ads,” that he wrote in 2003.”

See the original announcement.

Visit Retriever Net for all the latest alumni news, events, perks and services.

Welcome back to another academic year at UMBC! I hope you enjoyed the summer and were able to take some time for yourself and with your family. We in the Professional Staff Senate are energized and have hit the ground running in our efforts to support and represent our fellow staff members. If you haven’t already done so, please join our myUMBC groups page at http://my.umbc.edu/groups/pss. This is our official website and we plan to post information about our events along with other important announcements. Additionally, we encourage you to email us at ProfessionalStaffSenate@umbc.edu or use the group discussion feature to share feedback, ideas or concerns. The PSS 2011-2012 Action Plan will be finalized in the upcoming weeks, so look out for it on the groups page.

NEW THIS YEAR: Your CUSS (Council for University System Staff) representatives, Brian Souders and Joel DeWyer, will send monthly updates about discussions, decisions and more that affect professional staff across the University System of Maryland.

I also want to share a few other items:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: Upcoming Programs (for full list of workshops and flyers, go to www.umbc.edu/hr/T&OD/T&ODindex.html)
* Welcome to UMBC event, 9/15 @ 2-4 p.m.: staff are invited to join President Hrabowski and Interim Provost Rous in welcoming new colleagues to the UMBC community.
* Professional Development Day, 9/22 @ 8:15-12:30 p.m.: “Developing Calm, Confident Power at Work” offers techniques to stay calm in challenging times which help our minds thing more clearly, prioritize our workload and accomplish tasks more easily.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RETRIEVER FEVER – UMBC HOMECOMING 2011 – October 12 – 15, 2011. UMBC’s Homecoming celebration has many great things in store for all members of the community. For a full calendar of events and to register, go to www.umbc.edu/homecoming. The committee is also happy to bring back the popular office decorating contest, go to http://alumni.umbc.edu/homecoming_spirit for more information and to register. A few events that the PSS would like to highlight are:

* Faculty and Staff Social, 10/12 @ 5 p.m. Flat Tuesdays
* Homecoming Kick-Off Bonfire, Pep Rally and Movie, 10/12 @ 6 p.m., Erickson Field
* Alumni of the Year Awards, 10/13 @ 7:30 p.m., Library Gallery
* Men’s Soccer vs. New Hampshire, 10/14 @ 7 p.m., Soccer Stadium
* Midnight Madness, 10/14 @ 9 p.m., RAC
* 5K Dawg Chase, 10/15 @ 9 a.m., Stadium Lot
* UMBC Fest, 10/15 @ 11-7 p.m., Quad
* Kids Zone, 10/15 @ 1-4:30, Sports Zone, The Commons
* Comedy Night featuring Donald Glover, 10/14 @ 8 p.m., RAC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GET INVOLVED:

* Professional staff members are invited to attend our monthly senate meetings (9/8 and beginning in October - 3rd Thursday of each month, 2:30-4:30 p.m., commons 318).
* The senate has representatives on University and Senate committees. There are openings on the Staff Development and Staff Outreach committees. For more info, please contact Stanyell Bruce.
* There are also many opportunities on campus for staff to contribute to the University. Staff can volunteer for commencement, give during the Maryland Charities Campaign and/or the Faculty and Staff Campaign, teach an Introduction to an Honors University course and more. We will be sure to send you information as it becomes available. .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROFESSIONAL STAFF SENATORS FOR THE 2011-2012 YEAR:

Executive Board
Stanyell Bruce, Alumni Relations, President
bruce@umbc.edu, x5-2632

Carrie Sauter, Interdisciplinary Studies, Vice-President
csauter@umbc.edu, x5-2037

Ben Goldberg, Off-Campus Student Services, IT Officer
beng@umbc.edu, x5-5672

Mike Oettel, Shriver Center, Secretary
moetel@umbc.edu, x5-5655

Taifa Simpson, MARC U*STAR Program, Treasurer
hibbert@umbc.edu, x5-2634

Timothy Sparklin, Research Administration, Past President
sparklin@umbc.edu, x5-2737

Senators
Steve Bowers, Financial Services
bowers@umbc.edu, x5-1496

Linda Brown, MIPAR
librown@umbc.edu, x5-1083

Hans Cooper, Registrar Office
hcooper@umbc.edu, x5-1886

Alison Ginder, Residence Life
alisong@umbc.edu, x5-3575

April Householder, McNair Scholars Program
aprilh@umbc.edu, x5-3057

Michelle Massey, International Education Services
massey@umbc.edu, x5-8155

Jenny O'Grady, Institutional Advancement
jograry@umbc.edu, x-1711

Matthew Poland, Sponsored Programs
mpoland@umbc.edu, x5-8155
Alison Rohrbach, University Health Services
arohrbach@umbc.edu, x-1599

Anne Roland, Public Policy
anne@umbc.edu, x5-8457

Laila Shishineh, Undergraduate Education
lailams@umbc.edi, x5-3737

Aki Thomas, Athletics
aki@umbc.edu, x5-2125

Brian Thompson, Graduate School
bthompson@umbc.edu, x5-3578

Beth Wells, Provost Office
bwells@umbc.edu, x5-8907

CUSS Representatives (Council of University System Staff)
Brian Souders, International Education Services
souders@umbc.edu, x5-2624

Joel DeWyer, Commons Administration (alternate)
dewyerj@umbc.edu, x5-1446

Kay Kostopoulos ’72 was featured in O, the Oprah Magazine for a class on body languages that she co-teaches at Stanford University. From the article:

“Kostopoulos starts by leading us through a series of warm-up exercises. At first, the scene is yoga-esque. We step out of our shoes and stand tall, close our eyes, and take deep, slow breaths. But before long, the tempo changes, and Kostopoulos has us jumping up and down, shaking our arms, swinging our hips, blowing raspberries, and making kooky faces, alternately sticking our tongues out and then scrunching up our noses. All the while, we’re huffing out husky ha-ha-ha sounds from deep in our bellies. Kostopoulos encourages us to experiment with a deep voice. ‘You don’t want Mary Tyler Moore,’ she squeaks, then drops her tone an octave: ‘You want Diane Sawyer.’”

Read the full story.

Visit Retriever Net for all the latest alumni news, events, perks and services.